Judgement
by Sakura-chan79
Summary: And the Lord hated them both. -Rataotsk character study; includes passing mentions of Mithos, Aster, and Emil-


**A/N:** What is this? No pairings? The world must be ending for Sakura to not include pairings! _*ahem*_ In any case, this is a rather...skewered/biased view by Ratatosk on three other main characters in ToS and ToS2. It's sort of a character study on him, as well as the other three. I wrote it between classes the other day, so enjoy!

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**Judgement**

And he was like the one who had come after, so alike that it was as there was no difference. Bitterness was a part of his makeup now—he was far, far older than he appeared (for he had come with the elves and he was not limited in the same ways as they are)—and with his aging, he developed a bitterness not originally there. This bitterness was the first step he took to becoming an unintentional echo of the one who came after himself, but yet it was not the last.

He began to hate from the very core of his being (so, _so_ like the hero who came after). The hateful bitterness spurned him into a rage and it so happened that he began to forget the initial reasons for these slow—but oh so noticeable!—changes. Assuredly, he found new reasons but nothing new can compare to the original. Yet this did not matter; he merely needed a reason or two to maintain these changes in his personality, and one new reason was as good as another (for they need not be strong nor credible).

He existed in hateful bitterness for centuries, so much so that had he been able to look beyond his hate, perhaps he would have wondered why his servants hadn't yet contemplated abandoning their duties. As it was, they remained loyal, and so the Lord did not concern himself with them (maybe he hated them just a little bit too?). He hated to concern himself with the world; so long as his servants continued in their duties, he need not bother.

Of course, then, he _had_ to meet _him_. The "hero" who he so resembled (or perhaps it was the other way around?) appeared before the hateful Lord and stole such a precious treasure from him that the Lord's hate for the world surged to even greater heights. Did he contemplate besetting the world with the full force of the demons of Nieflheim? Perhaps not, but then again, _perhaps_. He could never now remember.

And so he slept. Why, for what reason, he did not truly know. Perhaps his sleep was caused by another, but it mattered not. He slept for centuries—millennia, even—and his hate simmered and festered but did not grow (for he was asleep and had no conscious knowledge of the changing world). His sleep was dreamless, little more than a rest in a black abyss.

The Lord was rudely awoken by one who was so opposite to him that he felt his utter hate for the world well up inside him once more. This man was so unlike the "hero" of ages past but so obviously idealistic that the Lord's rage could not be contained. It was always one or other; either the "hero", come to save the world as he destroys it, or the "child" who stumbled upon long-buried worldly secrets that he would inevitably use for his own selfish benefit. And the Lord hated them both.

He struck the "child" down—as he had wished to strike the "hero" down so long ago—at great cost to himself.

Now stuck inside the body of a "child-hero", he raged, sulked, hated and despised the world more than he ever had before. The Lord and the "child-hero" could not—he was certain—exist as one. He battled for supremacy with the "child-hero", an internal struggle that worried others yet surely meant nothing to them. It concerned none but the Lord and the "child-hero".

And if this boy, this "child-hero" was different from the others, the Lord, the "hero-child", cared not. All that mattered was gaining supremacy, absolute control of their shared body. Yet try as he might, the "hero-child" could not overpower the "child-hero"; they were evenly matched. Strangely, this equality—tenuous as it was—tempered the lordly "hero-child's" arrogant temper, his rage at being trapped with one he felt was little more than an annoying itch he could not rid himself of.

Yet soon, things began to change once more. The hateful bitterness that the Lord had carried with him for so long was still there, but its fires were lulled by the idealism of the "child-hero" whose body he shared. Through the eyes and ears of the "child-hero", the "hero-child" began to slowly interpret things in a new, less jaded light. He couldn't quite pinpoint the reasons for this change, and nor did he change quickly, but change he did once more.

Perhaps, in the end, he wasn't so alike to the ancient "hero" as he had once thought. Perhaps, in the end, he wasn't so unalike to the "child" as he had once thought. Perhaps, in the end, the Lord was more like the "child-hero" than he had once believed possible.

And the Lord of All Monsters, though locked away once more, accepted that, in the end.


End file.
